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More than 20 dead in floods in southern Iran: state media – International News News – Report by AFR

Floods in southern Iran have killed at least 21 people and left others missing after heavy rains hit the largely arid country, state media reported on Saturday.

“Twenty-one people were killed and two are still missing,” Hossein Darvishi, provincial leader of the Red Crescent Society, was quoted by the state as saying in the floods that hit several towns in and around Estahban County in southern Fars Province.

Videos posted to local media and social media showed cars getting caught in the rising waters of the Roodball River and being carried away while parents tried to rescue their children from the vehicles.

Estahban Governor Yousef Kargar said, “Around 5 p.m. yesterday, heavy rains … caused flooding in the central parts of Estahban County,” according to state-run IRNA news agency.

Estahban is 174 kilometers east of the provincial capital, Shiraz.

The tragedy happened on a summer weekend in Iran when families tended to head to cooler areas such as river banks, lake shores and valleys.

“A number of local people and tourists (from other areas) who had gone to the river bank and were staying in the river bed were caught in the flood due to the rise in water level,” Kargar added.

Iran has experienced repeated droughts over the past decade, but also regular floods, a phenomenon made worse when torrential rains fall on the sun-kissed earth.

Photos released by the Iranian Red Crescent Society showed rescuers walking on cracked, dry ground while others worked in the reeds.

In 2019, severe flooding in the south of the country killed at least 76 people and caused more than $2 billion in damage.

In January, flash floods in Fars initially killed two people when heavy rains hit the area, but the death toll rose to at least eight there and elsewhere in southern Iran.

Scientists say climate change is increasing extreme weather patterns, including droughts, as well as the potential for increased rainstorm intensity.

– Dry out –

Like other neighboring countries, Iran has suffered from chronic droughts and heat waves for years, and these are expected to get worse.

In recent months, there have been demonstrations against the drying up of rivers, particularly in central and south-western Iran.

Last November, tens of thousands of people gathered on the dried-up riverbed of the nationwide Zayandeh Rood River, which flows through downtown Isfahan, to complain about the drought and blame officials for diverting water.

Security forces fired tear gas as the protest turned violent and said they arrested 67 people.

Last week, official media said Iranian police arrested several suspects for disrupting security after they protested the drying up of a lake once thought to be the Middle East’s largest.

According to the UN Environment Program, Lake Urmia in the mountains of northwestern Iran began shrinking in 1995 due to a combination of prolonged drought and the abstraction of water for agriculture and dams.

In neighboring Iraq, 12 people died in December when flash floods swept across the north of the country despite severe drought.

#dead #floods #southern #Iran #state #media

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